


ode to the silver beetles

by stonedlennon



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: 1950s, 1959, Gen, Liverpool
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22855369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonedlennon/pseuds/stonedlennon
Summary: “He’s a lovely lad,” Jim tries.“He’s a terror,” Mimi corrects. “But thank you.”
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	ode to the silver beetles

**Author's Note:**

> Found this in my drafts and thought I'd share it. Nothing special here - just a brief look at a conversation between Jim and Mimi!

“Milk, Mister McCartney?”

Jim looks mollified to be addressed as such, although he hides his nerves beneath a pleasant smile and an inclination of his handsome chin. “Please. Thank you.”

P’s and Q’s indeed. Mimi sniffs and puts down the milk jug. When she passes the cup to Jim, he smiles again. “Lovely,” he says, “just what we need on a day like today.”

Rain splatters against the sitting room window. Mendips is quiet save for the burble of the wireless from the kitchen. John insists upon leaving it on all hours of the day – “Luxembourg, Mimi!” he’ll hiss if she goes within five feet of the damn thing; personally, she blames George for _that_ particular obsession of their nephew – and by now Mimi simply tunes it out. From the upstairs guest room comes the distant clacking of typewriter keys.

“I take it you didn’t come here to discuss the weather,” Mimi says pointedly. She lifts her own tea and raises her eyebrows at Jim, who appears somewhat surprised that she would be so forward. _Really, dear,_ she thinks wryly, _one doesn’t make it through a war without having nerves of steel._

Jim clears his throat. “No. As it happens, I didn’t.” He looks down at his cup, then back at Mimi. “It’s about Paul,” he says abruptly. “My son, Paul. And your nephew.”

_If old Jimbo comes barging in,_ John had threatened, _tell him to leave off and mind his own._

_What John means,_ Paul translated, poking his head around the kitchen doorway, _is that Dad won’t understand, you know, the music and stuff, not like you do._ And he’d batted those cow eyes at Mimi until she’d pursed her lips and said, _Flattery will do you no credit, boy._

_Well,_ Mimi thinks. _At least John warned her._

“Oh?” She stirs in a spoon of sugar. It clinks against the side of her second-best china cup (she wasn’t going to bring out the good set, now, was she). Mimi taps the spoon free and puts it in her saucer. “What’s John done this time?”

Jim blusters for a moment. “Well. _Nothing,_ but…”

“You’re sick of him being around at all hours, day and night?” Mimi supplies. She sighs at the ceiling. “Yes, me too.”

“He’s a lovely lad,” Jim tries.

“He’s a terror,” Mimi corrects. “But thank you.”

“What I mean to say…” Resting his cup on his knee, Jim frowns in thought. He is clearly attempting to be as cordial as possible, which Mimi finds vaguely amusing. She hides a smile in a sip of tea.

“What I mean to say,” Jim starts, “is that Paul has no business being in music. He’s a talented lad, to be sure, but music is no profession for a young man. I’ve told him so but he insists upon this – _band_ with your nephew.”

“They’re rather noisy,” Mimi agrees.

Jim takes a biscuit. “I’ve banished them to the shed.”

“Have you?” Despite herself, Mimi is impressed. “I confine them to the sun room. Not that it makes much difference.” She thinks about John’s wailing and Paul’s mournful lyrics. Together they are redefining the meaning of adolescent angst. She’s quite sure she was never so doleful when she was their age.

“If they played jazz, that I could understand, but –“

“I quite understand,” Mimi replies sourly. “No man’s hips should move like that. If you’ll pardon my forwardness.”

Jim looks like a haggard man. “No good ever came of listening to a man whose name sounds like a carpet cleaner.” When Mimi coughs into her tea, he smiles cheekily. “Am I wrong?”

“No, indeed.” If she had to hear one more synonymous mention of Paul and Elvis in the same sentence… “John is obsessed with Presley.” Mimi raises her eyebrows in distaste. “I know the lyrics better than he does.”

“I can assume John doesn’t use butter to grease his hair.”

They share a look. “Yet,” Mimi says.


End file.
